Doggie Help
 

My dog has been racked with fleas for a few weeks now and they are eating him alive, his hair is starting to fall out due to all the scratching he is doing. He is as miserable as can be.

Unfortunately for him he is allergic to every flea treatment I have given him, prescription or otherwise, and they end up doing almost as much damage as the fleas themselves!

I've been bathing him twice a day, three bath each time as the vet told me, first I bathe him in baby shampoo, then a special bottle the vet gave me that is basically watered down flea shampoo, and lastly I bathe him with baby shampoo with a small amount of tea-tree oil to soothe his bites.

He's flea free for no more than two hours, and I've run out of ideas.

We have a flea infestation all around our neighborhood, and even though we have taken all the precautions they still get in our yard and then house from our neighbor's yard somehow.

Any suggestions?

Could you try something like taking him outside of the neighborhood for a while? Taking him to a parents house for a week or two might help him recover.

I agree with 42 on this one, also call an exterminator and get your house bombed, fleas don't only live on your dog.

EDIT:Go camping and fishing for a bit, vacations are good all around, plus the fleas provide your needed excuse!

That sounds like a pretty nasty infestation. I'm surprised you don't have flees yet. If he's doing a lot of damage with the scratching, you might think about putting one of those cones on his head and little boots on his feet. He'll hate the ever loving hell out of it, but at least he won't be tearing chunks of flesh off.

You've tried Frontline type stuff? Also, are you doing a good job of vacuuming your house?

SWB

Whatever you end up doing, please don't use any Hartz-brand flea products -- they've been known to make animals seriously sick or worse, dead.
http://www.hartzvictims.org/

I've heard that dishwashing liquid (like Dawn, such as you'd use to scrub dishes by hand--don't quote me on the efficacy of that particular brand, however) is good against fleas when used as a shampoo. Not sure if it's any more effective than your standard flea stuff, tho', or just a cut-price alternative to it. I also second the ideas of a doggy vacation and some flea-bombing. It can't hurt, at any rate, to take your dog somewhere else for a while.

I third 42 and Demetrius on this one; chances are you're successfully nuking the fleas on him, but he's picking up ones that have spread elsewhere in your house. Time for some fumigating and a doggy-retreat, methinks.

Are you sure there isn't some sort of hypo-allergenic brand of flea shampoo out there? I mean, you'd think there'd be something that wouldn't cause an allergic reaction.

Unfortunately, as others have said, your fleas are all over the place by now, especially if there's an infestation in the neighbourhood, so just cleaning the dog is not enough. In fact, most of the fleas probably aren't even on your dog. Carpets and beds are two really bad areas. They can be in your yard too.

You need to keep doing the flea baths to get results. One or two won't do it. Use a flea comb to get the eggs and the dead fleas out. Corpses and flea feces aren't really something you want in your dog's coat

What's leading you to believe he's allergic to the insecticides? How long have you tried them for? What have you tried? The spot-on things are pretty effective if you haven't given them a chance yet. There are also medications that you can give your dog so that eggs laid by fleas feeding on him won't hatch.

Might want to toss some insecticides into your vacuum bag to make sure any you vacuum up die. Vacuum lots, and vacuum everything. Try to really clean everything especially before your dog's flea baths, so there's less chance of further infestation.

There are relief products you can use to help your dog be comfortable, so he won't scratch as much. Calamine lotion works too.

Remember that flea eggs take a couple days to hatch, and a week or two to grow up, so you do not want to stop treatment just because things seem fine for awhile. They're like a virus: Just because the symptoms are gone, doesn't mean they are.

Edit: And I'd be careful about dishwashing soap. Dogs have much more sensitive skin than our own. You can ask your vet about it, but chances are, the flea shampoos are better anyway.